GoogleTrends

Friday, September 4, 2015

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

(Sponsor this newsletter)

Explosive news: Plants can fight back against TNT pollution - researchers

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists have discovered why TNT is so toxic to plants and intend to use this knowledge to tackle the problem of cleaning up the many sites worldwide contaminated by the commonly used explosive. Researchers on Thursday said they have pinpointed an enzyme in plants that reacts with TNT, which is present in the soil at contaminated sites, and damages plant cells. TNT pollution can devastate vegetation and leave land desolate.

Confirmed: Wing Part Is From Missing Malaysian Flight

French authorities confirmed today (Sept. 3) that a piece of debris that washed up on an island in the Indian Ocean in July came from the Malaysia Airlines plane that mysteriously disappeared last year. Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 seemingly vanished without a trace on March 8, 2014, and the airplane part that washed ashore is the first piece of physical evidence recovered from the flight. In August, a week after the wing part washed ashore on the French island of Réunion, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak announced that the part belonged to the missing aircraft.

Key radar fails on $1 billion NASA environmental satellite

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - A key instrument on a $1 billion NASA satellite has failed, reducing scientists' ability to capture data to measure the moisture in Earth's soil in order to improve flood forecasting and monitor climate change, officials said on Thursday. A second instrument remains operational aboard the 2,100-pound (950-kg) Soil Moisture Active Passive satellite, though its level of detail is far more limited. The satellite's high-powered radar system, capable of collecting data in swaths of land as small as about 2 miles (3 km) across, failed in July after less than three months in operation, NASA said.

The Force is Strong With These Toys: New 'Star Wars' Line is Here!

Inside, a lucky group of fans watched a particularly dramatic reveal of the new toys, featuring a hip hop dance by five Stormtroopers. Moments before midnight, a group of five Stormtroopers stepped in front of the curtain and got the crowd a cheering as they performed a choreographed hip hop dance (a video of these troopers doing the same dance went viral in 2014). The store was full of costumed characters from the "Star Wars" universe.

Three-man international crew safely reaches space station

A Russian Soyuz spaceship safely delivered a three-man international crew, including Denmark's first astronaut, to the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday, a day after having had to maneuver to avoid colliding with space debris. The Soyuz TMA-18M blasted off to the $100 billion space laboratory from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Wednesday to take Russian Commander Sergei Volkov, Kazakh cosmonaut Aidyn Aimbetov and Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen into orbit.

Crowded House! International Crew Arrives at Space Station

Three new crewmembers arrived at the International Space Station early Friday morning, boosting the orbiting lab's population to a level not seen since late 2013. A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying cosmonaut Sergey Volkov, the European Space Agency's Andreas Mogensen and Kazakhstan's Aidyn Aimbetov docked with the space station's Poisk module at 3:39 a.m. EDT (0739 GMT) Friday (Sept. 4), two days after blasting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The hatches separating the two spacecraft are scheduled to open at 6:15 a.m. ET (1015 GMT) Friday, NASA officials said.

Snot-filled whale research takes flight

By Ben Gruber Gloucester, Mass. (Reuters) - Snotbot is a drone whose name describes it perfectly, it's a robot that collects snot, specifically whale snot. Up until now, gathering samples for whale research involved shooting darts that penetrated the body. Instead of shooting darts at a whale for biopsy samples, a whale can unknowingly shoot snot at a drone. "We believe that whale snot or exhaled breath condensate is going to be the golden egg of data from a whale.

NASA's Laser-Communication Tech for Spacecraft Zaps Forward

NASA spacecraft may soon be able to beam their data home to Earth blazingly fast — with lasers! It can cause frustration and mistakes on the International Space Station, according to a new NASA study — and it's forcing scientists to wait 16 months to get all the data back from the New Horizons spacecraft's historic July 14 flyby of Pluto. But a new, high-precision laser communications system will burst through those old radio-wave barriers for a faster back-and-forth, agency officials say.

Wild 'Hitchhiker' Spacecraft Idea Could Harpoon Comets

A NASA spacecraft may one day sling itself from one comet or asteroid to another using a harpoon and a superlong tether. That's the idea behind Comet Hitchhiker, a proposal that received funding last year from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, which seeks to encourage the development of transformative exploration technologies. "This kind of hitchhiking could be used for multiple targets in the main asteroid belt or the Kuiper Belt, even five to 10 in a single mission," Comet Hitchhiker concept principal investigator Masahiro Ono, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement.

Denali's Digits: North America's Tallest Peak 'Shrinks' by 10 Feet

Denali — the tallest peak in North America — not only has a new name (or, more accurately, its old name), but a new official height, geologists announced Wednesday (Sept. 2). The Alaskan mountain had been called Mount McKinley until Sunday (Aug. 30), when Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said it would officially be given its former name — Denali, which translates to "the tall one." But "the tall one" is not quite as tall, it seems, as geologists once thought: The newly measured height of 20,310 feet (6,190 m) is 10 feet less than the official altitude of 20,320 feet established in 1953 by Bradford Washburn, a mountaineer, photographer and cartographer. Washburn calculated the peak's height using aerial photographs and a triangulation method.

Rare Roman-Era Coffin Features Carving of Curly-Haired Man

A 1,800-year-old sarcophagus that archaeologists are calling the rarest one ever discovered was unearthed last week during a building project — but construction workers are now being accused of damaging, and then trying to hide, the massive Roman-era coffin, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) reported. The workers uncovered the Roman-era sarcophagus as they were building villas in Ashkelon, a city along Israel's Mediterranean coast. The discovery is one of the rarest sarcophagi ever discovered, according to the IAA.

Liberia Is Ebola Free (Again)

For the second time this year, Liberia has stamped out Ebola transmission and been declared free of the disease, health officials say. Today (Sept. 3) marks 42 days since the last person to have Ebola in Liberia was cured and released from the hospital, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Health officials typically wait 42 days to declare a country Ebola-free, because this is twice as long as the 21-day incubation period of the virus (the time it takes for a person infected with the virus to show symptoms).

How Much Do Chronic Diseases Cost in the US?

The most expensive health condition in the United States is cardiovascular disease, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The numbers in the report come from a CDC tool called the Chronic Disease Cost Calculator, and one of the reasons the researchers wrote the report was to demonstrate exactly what the tool can do, said Justin Trogdon, an associate professor of health policy and management at the University of North Carolina and a lead author of the new report, published today (Sept. 3) in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease.

Toyota partners with Stanford, MIT on self-driving car research

By Paul Lienert DETROIT (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp is collaborating with two top U.S. universities on artificial intelligence and robotics research aimed at ramping up the Japanese automaker's efforts to develop self-driving cars. Toyota said on Friday that it would spend $50 million over the next five years to establish joint research centers at both universities, one in the heart of Silicon Valley and the other outside Boston. Toyota has lagged behind rivals in developing self-driving cars and implementing hands-free driver assistance systems.

'Citizen Mars' Web Series Features Would-Be Red-Planet Colonists

"There's a tremendous amount of interest in the Mars One project, and many are skeptical about the mission's feasibility, which is why we thought it an important story to tell, and why the subjects involved are so compelling," Engadget Editor-in-Chief Michael Gorman said in a statement. "Citizen Mars" is billed as the first docu-drama to focus on the personal lives of Mars One contestants. Mars One's ambitious plans have attracted scrutinty and criticism.

The Moon Hits a Cosmic Bull's Eye Tonight: How to See It

If you live in the eastern-third of the United States or southeast Canada and your local skies are clear on tonight (Sept. 4), take a good close look at the rising moon, which has a celestial date with a star this evening. The moon will appear 52-percent illuminated and be just hours before it reaches last quarter phase. If the bright star Aldebaran isn't right next to the moon, it may be directly behind the lunar disk and about to pop back out. Weather permitting, at least some stage of this occultation can be seen by North American observers living east and north of a line running from Duluth, Minnesota to Miami, Florida.

(Sponsor this newsletter)

Delievered to you by Feedamail.
Unsubscribe

Thursday, September 3, 2015

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

(Sponsor this newsletter)

Odd ancient lizard-like reptile called earliest-known turtle

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It was a creature that one scientist said resembled "a strange, gluttonous lizard that swallowed a small Frisbee." But a sophisticated skull analysis showed that this reptile called Eunotosaurus africanus that lived in southern Africa 260 million years ago is actually the earliest-known turtle, even though it had no shell, researchers said on Wednesday. Eunotosaurus, about a foot (30 cm) long, possessed wide and flat ribs that gave it a distinctly rounded and turtle-like profile. "Think of your neighborhood box turtle, but much more flattened and with scaly skin and a long tail," said New York Institute of Technology anatomy professor Gaberiel Bever, describing Eunotosaurus.

NASA Wants to Use Hoverboard Tech to Control Tiny Satellites

NASA wants to make this vision a reality, and soon. The space agency is teaming up with California-based company Arx Pax, which has developed a real-life hoverboard using a technology called Magnetic Field Architecture (MFA). "Arx Pax and NASA will work together to design a device with the ability to attract one object to another from a distance," Arx Pax representatives said in a statement today (Sept. 2).

NASA vehicles maintenance contractors in federal fraud lawsuit

ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) - Two contractors hired to manage NASA's vehicle fleet at the Kennedy Space Center defrauded the agency of at least $387,000 for unnecessary tire replacements, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday by federal prosecutors in Florida.

New NASA soil moisture satellite loses 1 science instrument

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A NASA satellite launched seven months ago has lost use of one of two science instruments, but the agency says the mission to map global soil moisture will continue.

In Men with Breast Cancer, Double Mastectomies Are on the Rise

More men with breast cancer are opting to get both breasts removed, even the healthy one, a new study finds. Between 2004 and 2011, the rates of contralateral prophylactic mastectomies in men nearly doubled, with 5.6 percent of men with breast cancer undergoing the operation in 2011, compared with 3 percent in 2004, according to the study. A contralateral prophylactic mastectomy is an operation to remove a healthy, unaffected breast after a diagnosis of invasive cancer in the other breast.

Powerful Rocket Launches Light Up the Skies Just Hours Apart (Photos)

Just before dawn today (Sept. 2), a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station carrying a military communications satellite. Earlier in the day (12:37 a.m. EDT (0437 GMT), a Russian Soyuz rocket blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan carrying three human passengers headed for the International Space Station.

Syfy Space Shows 'Dark Matter' and 'Killjoys' Will Be Back for 2nd Seasons

The space-based action shows "Killjoys" and "Dark Matter" will both be getting second seasons in 2016, the Syfy network announced this week. "Killjoys" follows three space-romping bounty hunters and their talking spaceship through a planetary system called The Quad, where class tensions are about to boil over. The show averaged 1.5 million viewers in its first season, according to Syfy.

Alien Oceans' Glint Could Reveal Habitable Water Worlds

The planet's oceans reflect a great deal of light, especially during the crescent phase. "Seeing excessive brightness at the crescent phases could be a telltale signal of ocean planets," Tyler Robinson, of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, said at the Astrobiology Science Conference in Chicago in June. In 1993, for example, Carl Sagan and other researchers used observations made by NASA's Jupiter-studying Galileo spacecraft during a 1990 flyby of Earth to search for signs of life on our planet.

Why Record-Breaking Hurricane Trio Swirls Above the Pacific

A parade of tropical storms traipses across the Pacific in a new satellite image showing the once-in-a-lifetime (or more than one lifetime) event. Kilo, Ignacio and Jimena were all Category 4 hurricanes when these mosaic images over Hawaii were made on Aug. 29 and 30. Category 4 storms have winds ranging from 130 to 156 mph (209 to 251 km/h) — strong enough to uproot trees and severely damage structures, according to the National Weather Service.

60,000 Antelopes Died in 4 Days — And No One Knows Why

When geoecologist Steffen Zuther and his colleagues arrived in central Kazakhstan to monitor the calving of one herd of saigas, a critically endangered, steppe-dwelling antelope, veterinarians in the area had already reported dead animals on the ground. "But since there happened to be die-offs of limited extent during the last years, at first we were not really alarmed," Zuther, the international coordinator of the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative, told Live Science. But within four days, the entire herd — 60,000 saiga — had died.

Fairy-Tale-Inspired 'Gremlin Drones' Could Spy in Swarms

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is responsible for developing new technologies for the military, recently announced its "gremlin" program, a drone design initiative. The program is named for the "imaginary, mischievous imps that became the good luck charms of many British pilots during World War II," DARPA said. Like their make-believe counterparts, DARPA's mechanical gremlins will reside inside of manned aircraft.

Say 'Aaaah': Zoo's Aardvark Gets 2 Teeth Pulled

Getting a tooth pulled is never fun, but it's especially irksome if you're an aardvark. Ali, an aardvark at the Cincinnati Zoo, recently learned this lesson firsthand after two infected teeth landed her in the dentist's chair. Aardvarks, the only extant species in the order Tubulidentata, are unusual animals — and they have unusual teeth, said Jack Easley, a Kentucky-based veterinarian who specializes in dentistry.

Earth Lost Half Its Trees to Humans

A new global census of all the trees on Earth estimates that more than 3 trillion call this "pale blue dot" home. The study is billed as the most accurate inventory of Earth's tree population to date, revealing that there are 3.04 trillion trees, which is roughly equivalent to 422 trees for every person on the planet. Researchers used satellite images, forest inventories and supercomputing technologies to calculate the number of trees on Earth.

#JunkOff: Why Animal Genitals Are Important to Science

Did you know that male black widow spiders have corkscrew-shaped genitals? If you've been following scientists on Twitter in the past week or so, you probably do. "It all goes back to the basis of animal behavior and evolution," said Anne Hilborn, a doctoral student at Virginia Tech and cheetah researcher who launched #JunkOff and helped start the warmer-and-fuzzier follow-up hashtag, #CuteOff.

Jimmy Carter: I Want the 'Last Guinea Worm to Die Before I Do'

When former U.S. President Jimmy Carter announced earlier this month that he had melanoma, he also took the opportunity to slam another health issue: the Guinea worm. At the Aug. 20 news conference, Carter said that, even as he receives treatment for his cancer, he still wants to hear updates on the world's last few remaining cases of Guinea worm, a parasite that spreads through contaminated water and causes a devastating disease, leaving people incapacitated for months. "I would like the last Guinea worm to die before I do," said Carter, who will turn 91 on Oct. 1.

Why Is Powdered Caffeine Dangerous?

Powdered caffeine products are much more potent than caffeine-containing beverages like coffee, and they're dangerous because it is easy for people to consume a lethal amount of powdered caffeine, the FDA said. Just 1 teaspoon of the caffeine powder contains about the same amount of caffeine as 28 cups of regular coffee, the FDA said. "Powdered caffeine is very concentrated," said Henry Spiller, director of Central Ohio Poison Center at Nationwide Children's Hospital.

Spinal Manipulation Relieves Back Pain … for Some

Manipulating the spine can help people with lower back pain — but it doesn't work for everyone, according to a new study. Spinal manipulation, or applying force to the joints of the spine, is a technique commonly used by chiropractors and physical therapists, according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. "The big finding is that both sides have been right all along," said Greg Kawchuk, a professor of rehabilitation medicine at the University of Alberta and co-author of the study.

Tatooine-Like Planets with 2 Suns Need Perfect Ingredients to Form

"It may seem surprising given the disk is less massive, but if you're moving far from the central star a lot of the disk material is around you, while the central binary is concentrated toward the center," Kedron Silsbee, a graduate student at Princeton University, said at the recent Emerging Researchers in Exoplanet Science Symposium at Pennsylvania State University. Working with Roman Rafikov, also of Princeton, Silsbee modeled planetary formation in close binaries. "It turns out the disk can actually be the dominant component," Silsbee said.

'Floating Spoon' on Mars Is Just a Weird Rock, But Still Awesome

A so-called "floating spoon" on Mars spotted by NASA's Curiosity rover is cooking up a storm on the Internet, but it's actually a cool rock formation sculpted over time by the Martian winds, officials with the space agency say. The uncannily spoon-shaped rock was photographed by Curiosity on Sunday (Aug. 30) during the rover's 1,089th day on Mars, and word of the rock spread online in the days that followed. In the Curiosity photo, a handle shape juts out from an outcrop and ends in a rounded tip much like a spoon.

Scientists turn to aspirin to turbo-charge cancer immunotherapy

By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) - Giving cheap aspirin to cancer patients may turbo-charge the effectiveness of expensive new medicines that help their immune systems fight tumors, experiments on mice suggest. Immunotherapy promises to revolutionize cancer care by offering a better, longer-lasting response with fewer adverse side effects than conventional treatment, but the new drugs do not work well in all cases. One reason is that cancer cells often produce large amounts of the molecule prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), which turns down the immune system's normal attack response to tumor cells, according to scientists at London's new Francis Crick Institute.

Robot mother builds and improves its own children

By Matthew and Stock Scientists from the University of Cambridge have built a mother robot that independently builds its own children and then tests their performance to inform the design of the next generation. By analyzing the data it collects from observing the child, the mother robot ensures that preferential traits are passed down to the next iteration, while letting weaknesses fall by the wayside. "We developed a robot that creates robots.

20 kilometer high space elevator tower planned

By Jim Drury Ambitious plans to build a twenty kilometer (12.4 miles) tall space elevator tower have been announced by a Canadian space technology firm. Although this distance is a mere fraction of that reached in space missions, Thoth Technology says its ThothX Tower will make a major cost reduction in space flights by helping navigate the difficult first 50 kilometers (31 miles) of travel that traditionally requires rockets. Despite first being proposed more than a century ago, the idea of a space elevator has always appeared fanciful.

Scientists turn to aspirin to turbo-charge cancer immunotherapy

By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) - Giving cheap aspirin to cancer patients may turbo-charge the effectiveness of expensive new medicines that help their immune systems fight tumours, experiments on mice suggest. Immunotherapy promises to revolutionise cancer care by offering a better, longer-lasting response with fewer adverse side effects than conventional treatment, but the new drugs do not work well in all cases. One reason is that cancer cells often produce large amounts of the molecule prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), which turns down the immune system's normal attack response to tumour cells, according to scientists at London's new Francis Crick Institute.

The Science of Adorable: What It Takes to Win #CuteOff

Science Twitter has gone full squee. "I don't generally think of fish as cute, but there were some alarmingly cute fish," said Anne Hilborn, a doctoral student and cheetah researcher at Virginia Tech who helped launch the hashtag. Based on the types of animals posted — and previous scientific research on adorableness — here are seven features that could help an animal win a cuteness contest.

(Sponsor this newsletter)

Delievered to you by Feedamail.
Unsubscribe